Impact Capital’s quarterly research report seeks to highlight the latest developments most relevant to your investments and financial planning. In this installment of Three Market Themes, we focus on the downward trends in the stock market, the record-low annual total return for U.S. bonds, and the underperformance of growth stocks this year.
1. Commodities > Stocks > Bonds > Bitcoin
Within days of the start of the New Year, both U.S. stocks and U.S. bonds began falling.
Commodities have been the best performing asset class so far this year. The energy industry has been the best performing sector, while natural gas has been the best performing commodity.
By comparison, Bitcoin is down by over 20%.
2. Worst U.S. Bond Market Ever (And It’s Only April)
Since 1977, the worst annual total return for U.S. bonds as measured by the Bloomberg Barclays Aggregate Bond Index was (-2.9%) in 1994. The bond index is already down (-8.54%) a quarter into 2022.
The year-to-date performance of some other types of bonds include:
| Short-Term: | (-4.00%) |
|---|---|
| Inflation-Protected: | (-4.50%) |
| Corporate: | (-12.01%) |
| Long-Term: | (-16.44%) |
3. “I Only Invest In Growth Stocks.” Ouch.
We previously wondered if 2022 would be the year large value stocks outperformed large growth stocks. The iShares S&P 500 Value ETF is up 1.5% this year.
Consider the following “can’t miss” growth stocks that have all underperformed the S&P 500 (-6.3%) so far this year:
| Apple: | (-8%) |
|---|---|
| Amazon: | (-9%) |
| Google: | (-11%) |
| Microsoft: | (-14%) |
| Tesla: | (-17%) |
| Nvidia: | (-28%) |
| Meta Platforms: | (-40%) |
| Netflix: | (-62%) |
STAY IN THE LOOP